by Mike Shevdon
He walked over to the far corner. A huge pinboard was mounted there, overlapping the window behind it. It was covered in photos, posters, letters of support, news clippings, anything that linked to the girls. Some of the girls featured more prominently than others. The two from the lamp posts were most evident.
"Campaign central. They come here on a Friday night to meet, talk, swap false hopes and share expectations. They asked me if they could use this corner and I agreed. I thought it might help. Not sure whether I did the right thing, now."
"You don't share their hopes?"
"Not that. Wonder whether it's doing them any good, to go over and over it each week. Loss is a terrible thing, but sometimes it's better to try and move on, learn to live with it."
"It's easier to live with it if you know what happened to them."
He looked up sharply, searching my face. Something in my voice had triggered his reaction. "Did you lose someone, Neal?"
I looked at the photographs. "My daughter."
"Missing?"
"There was an accident. She was stolen from me. Weweren't able to see the body. It made it unreal, as if she weren't lost at all."
"Ah. Sorry."
"I didn't come here looking for sympathy."
He stepped out into the middle of the church. "Do you believe in God, Neal?"
"I'm not sure I know what I believe in."
"I believe in Him. You may think that's obvious, given my profession, but you might be surprised at how many who follow this calling come to doubt the presence, if not the existence, of God."
"I didn't come looking for God, either."
"Don't have to. Rather the point, don't you think?"
He turned and faced the window. I watched him, facing the full light, outlined against the morning.
"It's not what it seems, you know." He spoke to the window rather than turning and facing me.
"Things rarely are."
"If I take you to one of the families and it doesn't do any good, will you let it go?"
"I can't say until I've seen them."
He stood framed against the light for a long while, thinking or praying or maybe just waiting for me to add something else. Finally he turned, went back to the photo board and pulled out a pin to release a photo, which he handed to me."Karen Hopkins went missing almost a year ago. Eldest girl of four, seventeen when she vanished. Three younger children, youngest is two. Father works in the chandler's down the dock. On halftime at the moment, but he'll be at work this morning so there's a chance to meet the mother, if you want to."
"I shouldn't meet the father?"
"He won't talk about Karen. Won't even have her name mentioned. If you want to talk to Mrs Hopkins it has to be now while he's at work."
"Was there trouble between them?"
"No, nothing like that. Not everyone deals with the situation in the same way. For some it's easier to lock it away and carry on."
"Then yes, I'd like to speak with Mrs Hopkins."
"Leave the overnight bag here. I'll lock the church. If they do get in they'll steal the silver first. Stash it in the corner there."
I tucked my bag into the corner, conscious of the sword cached in the side pocket. Garvin wouldn't like me leaving it, but I could hardly carry it around with me. While my back was between the vicar and the bag, I pressed my hand to it, using a small amount of power to turn curious eyes away from it. Now anyone coming in while we were gone would have to be actively looking for the bag to notice it. It would do as a temporary measure.
Greg was waiting at the door. I passed through the shadowed porch and waited while he locked the church. He strode from the porch past me, and my stride lengthened to match his so I could keep up. We walked straight out into the traffic, which slowed around him to allow us across, then we turned uphill.
"It must keep you fit, all this walking."
"Have a car; don't use it much. By the time you've found a parking place you might as well have walked. It gets a ride out if I go out to one of the farms or when I go to the big supermarket in town."
I was thinking that having all that metal around him probably wasn't comfortable. I'd noticed that the railings around the church had been cut down. Perhaps it was no coincidence that although the east window had been replaced, the gates were chained back and the railings had never been put back.
"You said it was a calling."
"Did I?"
"You said not everyone who follows this calling believes in God."
"'Believes in the presence of God' is what I said. They believe in Him, but they're not sure whether He believes in them."
"But you do. You were called?"
"You wouldn't do it for the money. The pay is awful."
"You still do it, though. Was there a revelation, a road to Damascus?"
"Why do you ask? Am I part of your story too?"
"Perhaps. You're holding it all together, aren't you?"
He paused, considering.
"Were you called?" I asked.
"Not sure you'd call it that. I was born here. Maybe I just came home."
I could tell by his voice that there was more to it than that, but I didn't press him. After a few moments he continued.
"When I was a lad, I had an Auntie here." The word "Auntie" came out as "anti", as if it were a protest against something. "We were living away by then, but we used to come and stay. Fishing off the dock, ice cream for tea; that sort of thing. It was only summers, like. In the winter it's a different place."
He continued striding up the steep hill, breathing easily but momentarily reflective.
"Grew up in Rotherham. Back-to-back terraces, no work, no jobs. The men used to play dice on the corner, out of sight of the wives." The accent had slipped, giving way to flatter vowels, harsher consonants. "School were a boring place, most of the time we were out of it unless you were caught. If you were caught, you were caned."
He grinned, without humour.
"I had a dicky leg, though. Couldn't run. Couldn't keep up. Too easily caught. They'd leave me behind."
The pace he set showed no sign of the bad leg now.
"So I would be in school while they ran the streets. I did exams. Got into grammar school. Used to come home every night in the uniform and they'd throw sticks and bottles at me."
"You must have hated them."
"No, I wanted to be with them. Out. Free. The posh kids at school called me Makeshit, the kids at home Gimpy Greg. I know which I preferred." He turned into a side street, keeping the same long stride. "Coming up for school board exams I got a fever. It was touch and go for a while. The doctors didn't like it. Didn't know what to make of it. It was there and then gone. I was delirious then lucid. Sick then better. They said it was a virus, fighting my immune system. Long before HIV, this was."
He set off down the street again.
"I was sent here to recover. Never did the exams. I was here for months. The vicar, Georgeson, my predecessor, came every day. He would lay his hand on my forehead and tell me that He was looking out for me and He wasn't going to let me go. He said He had big plans for me. At the end of it I was changed."
"Changed?"
"No gimpy leg. No pain. I could run along the tops, jump over the heather. I would race on the bike down the hill, no fear, pedalling like a madman. I crashed twice. Wasn't hurt. Not a scratch. Wrecked the bike the second time. Then Georgeson came to see me. He said there was a place at the seminary if I wanted it. They would get me my exams, teach me what I needed, show me my path. It meant going away, but I knew I would return. Been here ever since."
He stopped where steps led down to the street below, opening out the skyline, showing the moving shadows of cloud across the sea beyond the rooftops.
"You feel blessed." It was obvious when you looked at him.
"It was a gift."
"Have you ever been back? To Rotherham, I mean?"
"It's all gone. The old bomb sites are supermarkets and the kids don't play in the streets any more. To
o scared of child molesters and drug dealers." He set off down the street again.
The temptation to ask him about the fever, the moment when his leg recovered and he began to change, was intense. Had he felt the same opening inside? Was he conscious of the power within him? To ask, though, would beg too many questions I didn't want to answer.
We arrived at a doorway, mid-terrace. The sound of a child squealing indignantly percolated through the window beside the door. Without preamble, Greg pressed the bell button. A distorted electronic chime sounded inside. There was a pause, then more shouting – an older voice with harsher edges. "Shelley! Shelley! See who's at the door, will ya?"
There was another pause and then the rhythmic thump as stairs were descended at speed. The door was pulled open, revealing a sullen girl in a sparkly T-shirt and jeans.
"It's Shelley, isn't it?" said Greg, giving no hint that we'd heard the yelling.
"S'right."
"Would like a word with your mother, please, Shelley? If she has a moment?"
She grimaced, but turned and shouted down the passage towards a back room. "Mam! It's the vicar. He wants a word."
The sound of a baby crying erupted from the kitchen.
"Isn't it a school day, Shelley?" Greg enquired.
The girl lifted her chin. "I'm poorly, aren't I?" Her expression dared him to contradict the obvious lie.
A middle-aged woman emerged from the kitchen wiping down the front of her top with a tea towel. "Well, don't just stand there like a ninny. Invite him in."
Shelley opened the door a little more, revealing me.
"He's got someone with 'im, hasn't he?"
Shelley retreated into the hall, allowing us into the house.
"You bringin' round the bailiff now, vicar?" the woman asked.
"Like a quiet word, please, Mrs Hopkins. About Karen."
"Nothin' left to say, is there?" she said.
"Neal here's a journalist. Wants to try and find the girls."
"Does he now?" She paused, looking me straight up and down, not disguising that her frank assessment left me wanting.
"A quiet word? Five minutes?"
A wail started up from the kitchen behind her.
"Shelley. See to the tiddler, will ya? I need to talk to the vicar."
"Oh, mum!"
"Now! Or you can put your uniform on and go to school. One or t'other."
She sighed, shrugged and pushed past her mother to the back of the house. Mrs Hopkins opened a side door and ushered us into a sitting room. It was tight with furniture, dominated by a big-screen TV over the fireplace where a mirror or a picture would once have been. The screen was off and reflected the room darkly.
"I'd offer you tea, but we're off out as soon as tiddler's fed." The lie was obvious to me and must have been to Greg.
"Don't want to put you to any trouble, Mrs Hopkins. Neal here just wanted to ask a few questions about Karen."
"Nothing to say. She's gone." She shrugged but glanced towards the fireplace. There was a family photo crammed in among the ornaments. Karen was smiling out of it, tucked under her mother's arm. Her father held a baby, and Shelley and a younger boy sat in front. I wondered if it was significant that Mrs Hopkins had placed herself between her daughter and her husband.
I cleared my throat. "Was there any indication that she was going to leave, before she disappeared?"
"The police asked all this. We've been over it a hundred times."
"It'll help me form a picture of her. I might be able to find her."
"She's gone and there's no bringing her back. It doesn't help to keep going over it, you know."
"So you've given up hope?" I asked.
She sighed and looked at her hands. " No. I still hope she'll come home. I don't think she will, but I hope."
"I'd like to try and help you, Mrs Hopkins."
"That's kind, Mr… Neal, is it?"
"Neal Dawson," I said.
"But I think everything that could be done has been done. If she wanted to come back to us by now, she would have done."
"What if she can't? She may not have any money. She may be lost, or alone."
"I think if she meant to come back, she'd find a way, don't you? All she'd have to do is pick up the phone. She could even reverse the charges."
She stood and went to the door and opened it. "I think we'll have to go out shortly, if you don't mind. Thanks for calling round, vicar."
Greg and I stood and eased our way out of the cramped sitting room and into the hallway. We said goodbye at the door.
"Thanks for seeing us, Mrs Hopkins," said Greg.
"You were very good to us when Karen disappeared, vicar. We've not forgotten that."
"Least I could do."
"Come any time. You're always welcome."
"God bless."
"You too." She closed the door quietly.
Greg paused for a second before the blank doorway and then turned and strode away, his long stride making it hard to keep up. He didn't speak and I mulled over what we'd heard before I started asking questions.
We retraced our steps and came to the road leading down to the hillside church. He paused before the busy traffic, waiting for a lull between cars.
"What is she not saying?" I asked him.
"What makes you think there's something she's not saying?"
"I offer to help find her missing daughter and she turns me down. She says everything's been done. I tell her that her daughter may need help and she dismisses it. All she has to do is pick up the phone? What happened to leaving no stone unturned? If it were my daughter…"
"Not though, is it? It's not your daughter. It's hers."
He strode out into the traffic, the cars braking to let him through. No one beeped at him or shouted. Maybe they were used to this tall dark man walking straight into the road, his eyes ahead, heedless of the danger.
I had to wait for a gap in the cars to follow. He was unlocking the church doors when I caught up.
"Like you, in my profession there's a feel for when people aren't telling you the whole story." I carefully didn't mention what that profession was. "Call it a hunch."
"As you say, a hunch." He walked over to the pinboard and unpinned a picture. He took a parish news-sheet, ripped the back page from the staples and wrote out a name and two addresses, one a college, one a café. He gave them to me.
"What's this?"
"Want to find the lost girls? This is what they call a clue – better than a hunch. Be outside here –" he pointed to the address "– it's part of Hull College. Be there at four o'clock this afternoon. Ask for Zaina. Find Zaina, you'll find Karen. If she's not there, go to the café. The address is there underneath."
"You know where she is?"
"I know where she'll be."
"Why didn't you tell her mother?"
"Before you help people, Neal, you have to find out what they need. Otherwise you end up making things worse."
"You could at least ease her mind; tell her that she's OK."
"Go and find Karen, Neal. Then come back and tell me what I should do." He found my holdall in the corner easily, regardless of the warding I had placed upon it, and pushed it into my arms
"Tomorrow," he said, "when you've had time to sleep on it."
He patted my shoulder and then walked slowly up the central aisle of the church, halted before the altar and slowly knelt. I left him to his prayers.
Hull was a good few miles away. If I was to be there by four, I would need to use the Ways. Before that I needed somewhere to stay. I walked back down the hill to the harbour and then along to Dorvey Street. The Dolphin Guest House was the third in a terraced row. It looked clean and cared for, but the sign said 'No Vacancy'. I almost turned away, but then remembered that Geraldine at the café had said that Martha would 'sort me out'. Maybe she had somewhere else I could stay. I rapped with the polished door knocker and waited until the door was opened, revealing a small woman wearing a plum satin blouse with hug
e flowers on it.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"Hi. I'm Neal Dawson. Geraldine at the Harbour Café said you might be able to recommend somewhere to stay for a few days, just while I'm in town."
"Selling something?"
"No, I just wanted to ask about rooms. Geraldine at the café said…"
"I meant, are you a travelling salesman?"
"No, a journalist."
